Sand City cracks down on beach camping

SAND CITY &GT;&GT; Shoreline resorts may be in Sand City's future, but now the tiny Monterey Peninsula city is cracking down on an influx of unwanted visitors.

The City Council last week approved a new law intended to thwart what officials call "an ongoing problem with homeless encampments on the beach in the dunes west of Highway 1."

The measure specifically outlaws using the beaches and dunes for camping to prevent "unsafe and unhealthy conditions."

Kelly Morgan, the city's interim administrator, said Tuesday the anti-camping ordinance is designed to put more teeth into efforts to control the illegal beach activity. Anti-trespassing citations turned out to be fairly useless because of court decisions saying the trespassing code is too vague.

The new anti-camping law is designed to comply with findings by the court, says a council report by Police Chief Michael Klein.

Morgan, a former administrator who returned to City Hall earlier this year after his predecessor retired, said, "Since I came back there has been a big increase in camping on these remote beaches and dune areas."

Numbers vary, he said. "One day, it's one or two. One day recently we had five or six," he said.

Klein's report traces the increase of homeless campers to "the pressure the city of Monterey has exerted on (its) homeless population."

In the past year because of increased complaints about transients downtown and near wharves, Monterey has increased downtown police patrols and passed a law making it illegal to sit or lie on commercial sidewalks.

On July 28, two members of Sand City's council committee on public safety made a site visit and found four illegal camps on the beach, the council report says.

The camps create of a number of issues, including trash, open fires, drug use, lack of latrines and habitat disturbance, the council report says. City photos of illegal camps show solar lamps, abandoned tents, stone paths, and several shots of tents on the beach, including one flying a U.S. flag.

At both ends of Sand City, the city has long planned two resort hotel projects, one of which is seeking its final permit this week from the state Coastal Commission.